I don’t know if anybody expected the crazy $1.6B success of Jurassic World, but it happened, proving that audiences were eager to see foolish humans running away from genetically-created dinosaurs again. Will they be as excited to revisit it next year with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which looks like pretty much the same thing? Well, tonight’s debut trailer is a good first step in building anticipation.
As we’ve seen in previous teasers, the film reunites Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard as Owen Grady and Claire Dearing, with the latter having started a dinosaur sanctuary on Isla Nublar. The problem? It’s near an active volcano, which is perhaps the dumbest thing a human has done in this franchise, and when it erupts she needs Owen’s help getting the dinos to safety. Oh, and Owen’s favorite velociraptor, Blue, is alive and well…for now.
The film is directed by J.A. Bayona (The Impossible) with Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, Toby Jones, and Rafe Spall in the cast. Oh yeah, and some guy named Jeff Goldblum as some minor Jurassic Park character named Ian Malcolm. Anybody excited about that or anything?
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opens June 22nd 2018.
The best movies, the ones that stand the test of time, can be many things to many different people. Guillermo Del Toro has crafted just such a film with The Shape of Water, a film that is as beautiful as it is bizarre, as terrifying as it is heartbreaking. Part creature feature, part swooning 1950s romance, and part paranoid Cold War-era thriller, The Shape of Water is a perfect blending of Del Toro’s capricious sensibilities and his most successful film since Pan’s Labyrinth, with which it would make a perfect companion piece.
Set in Baltimore at the height of Cold War tensions, when Russkies were believed to be around every corner, the story follows Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute woman abandoned as a child and has grown to live by her own rigorous routine. You can set a clock, and literally Elisa does this, to the boiling of her favorite hard-boiled eggs which gives her those precious few minutes to bathe, pleasure herself, and prepare for work. Elisa may be silent, and the apartment she lives in resembling a nightmarish Bates Motel under the best of circumstances (plus it’s always dark and rainy!), her life is a full one. She’s besties with her neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins), a closeted man who does advertising art and crushes hard over the guy at the pie shop. She and Giles spend their evenings glued to the TV watching old black & white musicals, films you wouldn’t think to be an influence on Del Toro’s vision for The Shape of Water but, well, you’d be surprised.
Del Toro paints such a vivid character portrait that he could almost make a full-figured film out of just one half of Elisa’s life, but thankfully he didn’t. Because it’s at her job, cleaning up a top secret government facility cleverly known as Occam (as in Occam’s Razor), where she meets the latest “asset” to be researched. A merman (Doug Jones), straight from The Creature from the Black Lagoon (a Del Toro favorite) has been held captive there by the menacing, cattle prod-wielding Strickland (Michael Shannon). A wild, untamed creature, not unlike Jones’ Abe Sapien from the Hellboy movies, it senses a kindred spirit in Elisa. And she too senses their connection, and soon she’s sneaking in to feed it hard boiled eggs, and to serenade its ears with music, which always soothes the savage beast, you know. All of this comes at the confusion of Elisa’s chatty co-worker friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer), when she begins to sense Elisa’s growing attraction to the creature.
Of course, this attraction is anathema to a racist and a sexist like Strickland, who sees the creature as merely something to be dissected and studied for use against the Russians. But to Elisa he’s just like her, a mute creature with a sensitive soul; he “doesn’t see what I lack, doesn’t see that I am incomplete”, as she signs passionately at one point. Elisa may see herself as incomplete, but thankfully Del Toro doesn’t depict her as such. It’s refreshing to see Elisa as a woman who is happy in her own skin, which makes it easier for us to accept her loving someone from a completely different species, for the merman is a gentle spirit regardless of his scary exterior. Meanwhile, Strickland, who has some weird fascinations of his own to contend with, may be handsome but he’s utterly revolting. When two of his fingers are bitten off and reattached to his hand, they continue to blacken and stink just like that black heart beating in his chest.
While unmistakably a love story, with big operatic moments of passion literally flooding the screen like tidal waves, Del Toro recognizes the world in which The Shape of Water enters. At a time when hatred and prejudice have stitched their way into our society’s fabric like never before, Del Toro brings a message of acceptance, love, and harmony that we could all use a lot more of. Of course, Del Toro expresses these themes by enveloping them in a story that is also pretty violent and surprisingly gripping. There are some seat-of-the-pants thrills, a couple of surprising twists, and a fair amount of blood spilled.
With her elven, expressive features Sally Hawkins is the ideal Del Toro leading lady. Without saying a word she expresses so much more emotion in her eyes and gestures, matching the wonderfully emotive turn by Doug Jones. In a career that has seen him vanish into one creature’s skin after another, Jones has finally hit his high water mark with this one. And while Shannon excels as the loathsome, bullying Strickland, we can’t overlook yet another delightful performance by Jenkins and the effectively powerful one by Michael Stuhlbarg as the secretive Dr. Hoffstetter. Whisking us from the mildewy labs of Occam to the sweeping currents of the deep blue sea are Alexandre Desplat’s haunting score and DP Dan Lausten’s superlative visuals, which may give Roger Deakins’ gorgeous Blade Runner 2049 a run for their money.
Del Toro has given us a small piece of cinematic magic with The Shape of Water. It’s funny; Del Toro hits me right in the wheelhouse with Hellboy and Pacific Rim but those films have nothing on The Shape of Water or Pan’s Labyrinth. Nobody does dark fairy tales better than him; he’s a true master of the art form and right now he’s at the height of his powers.
This is pretty extraordinary. Earlier this week the incredible news broke that Quentin Tarantino was negotiating to possibly direct a new Star Trek film for Paramount and producer J.J. Abrams. It didn’t even seem real at the time because, despite Tarantino loving the franchise, it just wasn’t something we could imagine him doing, especially with his directing career so close to wrapping up. But there are real steps being taken now, and a big one is that Tarantino may have decided on a writer who can make his vision come true.
And of course, that vision will include Star Trek being R-rated. Expect more than the usual allotment of F-bombs from Starfleet if Tarantino’s movie gets off the ground. Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) has emerged as frontrunner to write it after a meeting with Tarantino that included writers Lindsey Beer (Chaos Walking) and Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3). It’s a little odd that Tarantino isn’t writing it himself, but he has work to do on his upcoming Manson era movie. Presumably he’ll do a rewrite on anything that gets to him, anyway.
There are a bunch of questions here, but I’ll start with this: Will Tarantino’s movie be part of the universe established by Abrams or perhaps a standalone? I could see it going either way. Will this count as Tarantino’s 10th movie and thus be his final one before retiring? Is he still planning to retire? And finally, what are the chances of Samuel L. Jackson playing the first black Captain Kirk? I put the odds at 50/50 right now.
Paramount is moving fast on this one, so hopefully more news will come soon. [Deadline]
Justice League is only a few weeks old and already Warner Bros. just wants to forget that whole thing happened and move on to the next thing. That would be Aquaman, which brings back Jason Momoa as the heir to the seas himself. The film promises to be a very different (ocean) beast, and you can tell from this first image because Aquaman looks ready to kick more ass than he did in all of Justice League. Let’s keep it real, he was pretty unimportant to the whole thing.
Yeah, EW has the first look at Momoa who is friggin’ jacked here. I just watched him last night in The Bad Batch and he was big, but here he looks like he could carry all of Atlantis on his shoulders. Momoa took time from his workout schedule to talk about the role of Arthur Curry, and he promises a more substantial glimpse at the hero’s life than we got in Justice League…
“Justice League was only a weekend in Arthur Curry’s life. This is a totally different beast. In Aquaman, you see when his parents met and what happened to hem. Then the little boy being raised and finding his powers and going through that and never being accepted on either side. And then becoming this man who puts up all these walls. You just slowly see this man harden up and be completely reluctant wanting to be king and not knowing what to do with these powers he has. I think James Wan just killed it.”
Wan talked about how his movie will differ from Justice League, because being different from anything Zack Snyder seems to be the mandate now, and also why he chose to direct Aquaman rather than The Flash…
“It’s going to look very different, it will feel very different — aesthetically, tonally, story-wise — it’s my own take. It’s a much more a traditional action-adventure quest movie.”
“Aquaman has been the joke of the comic book world, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought how cool that would be. Let’s take the character everybody makes fun of and do something really interesting with him.”
Aquaman opens December 21st 2018 and co-stars Willem Dafoe, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Dolph Lundgren.
I don’t know a ton about the Harry Potter fanbase but to me they seem like an amiable bunch. However they’ve gotten pretty riled up over the continued presence of Johnny Depp in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, in which he plays the titular villain, after allegations of domestic abuse against ex-wife Amber Heard. Director David Yates issued a pretty lousy defense of Depp recently, in which he basically dismisses the issue because not EVERY woman in Depp’s life thinks badly of him.
Now it’s Harry Potter author and screenwriter J.K. Rowling’s turn to voice her opinion on the issue. She’s also in the camp of rushing to Depp’s aid, albeit in the most passive way possible. Seriously, she manages to say quite a bit without really saying much at all except that Depp is staying.
When Johnny Depp was cast as Grindelwald, I thought he’d be wonderful in the role. However, around the time of filming his cameo in the first movie, stories had appeared in the press that deeply concerned me and everyone most closely involved in the franchise.
Harry Potter fans had legitimate questions and concerns about our choice to continue with Johnny Depp in the role. As David Yates, long-time Potter director, has already said, we naturally considered the possibility of recasting. I understand why some have been confused and angry about why that didn’t happen.
The huge, mutually supportive community that has grown up around Harry Potter is one of the greatest joys of my life. For me personally, the inability to speak openly to fans about this issue has been difficult, frustrating and at times painful. However, the agreements that have been put in place to protect the privacy of two people, both of whom have expressed a desire to get on with their lives, must be respected. Based on our understanding of the circumstances, the filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies.
I’ve loved writing the first two screenplays and I can’t wait for fans to see ‘The Crimes of Grindelwald’. I accept that there will be those who are not satisfied with our choice of actor in the title role. However, conscience isn’t governable by committee. Within the fictional world and outside it, we all have to do what we believe to be the right thing.
Look, none of us knows what went down between Depp and Heard. Presumably, neither does Rowling unless these “assurances” came with a thorough explanation from both parties. All I know is this seems like the exact wrong climate to be dealing with this sort of thing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some backlash. If this turns out to be the lowest grossing Potter film I wouldn’t be at all shocked. Then again, Depp’s presence didn’t hurt Murder On the Orient Express at all.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald opens November 16th 2018.
The cast of DC Films’ Shazam has a new additon who has plenty of experience fighting bad guys. Jack Dylan Grazer, who played hypochondriac Eddie Kaspbrak in this year’s horror adaptation of It, has joined the cast alongside Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, and possibly Mark Strong.
Grazer takes on the potentially huge role of Freddy Freeman, who in the comics is the best friend of Billy Batson (Angel), the young boy who transforms into Shazam (Levi) and is granted the powers of seven ancient mystical figures. Freddy, who is the only one who knows Batson is Shazam, eventually gains a similar ability and becomes Batson’s sidekick, Captain Marvel Jr. If you’re confused, it’s because Shazam’s name used to be Captain Marvel, and shouldn’t be confused with the Marvel character who goes by that name and has a movie coming out soon. Captain Marvel Jr. had one of the dumbest weaknesses ever. Basically, he couldn’t say his own name, otherwise he’d lose his powers and revert back to Freddy. >sigh<
Shazam will be directed by David F. Sandberg and opens in 2019.
Jose Padilha was a hot shot director for a while, having delivered the gritty Elite Squad Brazilian cop flicks. Then he came to Hollywood, got handed the forgettable Robocop remake and…well, Padilha got forgotten, too. Well now he’s back with the true-life hijacking drama 7 Days in Entebbe, and it looks like a potential slice of redemption.
Starring Rosamund Pike, Daniel Bruhl, Vincent Cassel, and Eddie Marsan, the film tells the true story of Operation Entebbe, a 1976 counter-terrorism mission led by the Israeli Defense Forces to rescue hostages aboard a hijacked plane that had been diverted to Uganda. The hijackers sought the release of more than 40 Palestinian prisoners, and actually had the support of Uganda’s dictator, Idi Amin.
Who knows what will happen with the X-Men franchise if Disney buys 20th Century Fox…maybe nothing. For now X-Men: Dark Phoenix is happening and hopefully it’ll be a vast improvement over the disappointing X-Men: Apocalypse, undoubtedly the last time you’ll see Bryan Singer behind the camera for an X-Men flick, or any Fox film for that matter.
EW has dropped the first images from the film, which is loosely based on Chris Claremont’s epic “Dark Phoenix Saga” storyline. Yes, that’s the one that got butchered up in X-Men: The Last Stand, but this is an all-new cast, an all-new timeline, and the stakes are much higher. Set in 1992, ten years after the prior movie, it finds the X-Men recognized as national heroes. But that proves their undoing as Charles Xavier’s (James McAvoy) ego pushes them to greater extremes. During a space mission the team is hit by a solar flare that sets off the power of the Phoenix within Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), and we know the cosmic entity is due for a trip to the dark side.
The images feature Turner, McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Michael Fassbender in conversation with writer/director Simon Kinberg, a possible funeral scene, and Jennifer Lawrence as a shapeshifting alien who is apparently NOT the Shi’ar empress, Lilandra, or is a very different version of her.
And speaking of Singer, it’s crazy when you look back and realize this franchise had both him and Brett Ratner at different points. The chaos Singer can bring to a set has been realized yet again with the Bohemian Rhapsody debacle, which echoes his unprofessional actions on X-Men: Apocalypse, while Ratner was recently accused of abusive behavior by Ellen Page for what he did while shooting X-Men: The Last Stand. Singer still has a producer credit, but he’s not coming anywhere near the set, and Lawrence is thankful for it…
“It was unrecognizable. Everything was on time. Everything was organized. These movies have always been fun amidst chaos, and now they were fun with no chaos.”
Andrew Haigh has already decked us emotionally with his two dramas, 45 Years and Weekend, and now he’s ready to hit us where it hurts one more time. Lean on Pete made the festival rounds earlier this year, and the adaptation of Willy Vlauntin’s novel about a troubled boy and his horse is ready to hit theaters as a powerful trailer has arrived.
Charlie Plummer, who will be seen later this month in All the Money in the World, plays a 15-year-old boy who escapes from his difficult life by taking a summer job caring for a washed-up old horse. The film also stars Chloe Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Thomas Mann, Steve Zahn, and Amy Seimetz, which is a pretty good group for Haigh to work with. Here’s the official synopsis:
Fifteen-year-old Charley Thompson (Charlie Plummer) arrives in Portland, Oregon with his single father Ray (Travis Fimmel), both of them eager for a fresh start after a series of hard knocks. While Ray descends into personal turmoil, Charley finds acceptance and camaraderie at a local racetrack where he lands a job caring for an aging Quarter Horse named Lean On Pete. The horse’s gruff owner Del Montgomery (Steve Buscemi) and his seasoned jockey Bonnie (Chloë Sevigny) help Charley fill the void of his father’s absence—until he discovers that Pete is bound for slaughter, prompting him to take extreme measures to spare his new friend’s life. Charley and Pete head out into the great unknown, embarking on an odyssey across the new American frontier in search of a loving aunt Charley hasn’t seen in years. They experience adventure and heartbreak in equal measure, but never lose their irrepressible hope and resiliency as they pursue their dream of finding a place they can call home.
This should be the no-brainer story of the week. You should just know it and keep it in your back pocket for the future until we see what comes of it. It’s looking like that Disney/Fox deal is going to happen, and soon the X-Men will be making their way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You’ll be shocked to learn, according to Deadline, that Marvel’s Kevin Feige is “said to be eager to get his hands on the X-Men Universe.”
No shit?
I mean, obviously he is. There are a ton of questions about what would happen with that, though. Would this mean the end of future films like X-Force and Gambit? What about the planned trilogy of New Mutants horror movies? Would we see total recasting and a relaunch of the X-Men as a brand? I hope not, but Marvel may have their own vision that doesn’t include what came before. Surely they wouldn’t mess around with Deadpool‘s winning formula.
And hey, they’ll be able to start calling Scarlet Witch a mutant finally! And Quicksilver, too! Oh wait…
